Bulk Delete Student Data - Timescales (moving from SIMS to Arbor)

[mikes]

Hi guys I've been told I have to delete old student records in preparation for moving from SIMS to Abor but on here I have read various timescales for deletion - one guy said we need to keep the records for 75 years???

I have been told that we need to delete records for all students who would currently be 30 or over Unless they are in care - we need to keep those longer - SIMS handles this with the bulk delete tool so I was going to run this.

But does anyone have the timescales for the dates?

We are in Wales btw incase the law is different!

[john]

You should consult your records retention schedule, as you have already indicated some students will need to be kept for longer so ensuring your data is marked accordingly is important.

[SpreadsheetJockey]

Arbor has a really straight forward data retention area for student and staff records - if I were you I would be leaving the data as is, and then dealing with it once it gets into Arbor. The policy is set in Arbor at the moment, but I hear they are developing this area at the moment (and hopefully this will allow us to set a custom data retention schedule rather than stick to a generic one).

[pete]

As @john says, consult your retention schedule / badger your DPO for the retention schedule.

 

If this is the first time you've run it in SIMS it will take a while and impact people using SIMS. Run it overnight.

 

Make sure you also clean up unlinked contacts / persons too - you'll create a lot of orphaned contacts when you delete student records.

@SpreadsheetJockey - I'd argue against putting unnecessary data into the new MIS. There'll be enough weird legacy stuff coming over as it is.

[mikes]

yeah I tested it with year 1997/1998 and it worked fine, had 3 students unselected that were kept. We are told by our LEA to do this data cleanse (in a document the very definition of Byzantine) as I guess as Pete said they don't want a lot of unnecessary cruft coming over into the new system.

[SpreadsheetJockey]

@SpreadsheetJockey - I'd argue against putting unnecessary data into the new MIS. There'll be enough weird legacy stuff coming over as it is.

 

Oh I'd absolutely agree with you from a technical standpoint, assuming SIMS these days is better at this stuff than it was previously. But if its going to take weeks of sifting staff, student and contact data, then just spend an hour doing it in Arbor instead.

[Quark]

We are migrating all our data and have been told to use the data retention tool in Arbor to manage deletions post migration

[PotNoodleTech]

This is a task for your Business Manager/Data Manager/Data Assistants to compelte. It is not an IT support task, it is not technical support. There is nothing broken that needs fixing. If you delete a bunch of exam results that are needed your going to be in trouble I would steer WELL clear of it.